Going to Ground
by semiiramiis
Summary: Challenge fic response: Shepard Non Canon Background challenge Shore leave on the Citadel is always fraught with issues, especially when Shepard would love to never see it again. FShepxJoker.


Candace Shepard always felt like a fake on the Citadel. Or maybe it was that it was the only place where she still had to face the fact that she was a fraud. A fraud, the great Commander Shepard. Except it was all just a lie... there really wasn't a Commander Shepard. There never had been. Anywhere else, she could put that all behind her. She could be Shepard, and really give it no other thought than that. It only changed here...

"Anybody ever call you Candy?" The man in the bed behind her inquired, and she grimaced. He always got this way afterward, and she knew he had every reason to ask. He'd been her lover for over a year now, on the down low now that they were back in Systems Alliance uniforms again, but too many of her crew knew the truth.

"None that still live. Anybody ever call you Jeffery?" She asked smoothly, hearing his breath catch at the very idea. He'd chew on that for awhile, and she'd escape the need to decide whether or not to go there. It hit hard, damn him. She couldn't blame him, he was clueless. And he was clueless because she couldn't, wouldn't, tell him the truth. Everything that they'd been through together, and she still couldn't bring herself to say it.

"Hell, no. Do I _look_ like a _Jeffrey_?"

 _Do I look like a Candy?_ She knew better than to ask, he'd answer, and the obvious answer was obvious. He'd say something sweet, he'd piss her off, and she'd sulk. No, she'd spare him that with... "Candy is a pro's name."

"Ah...yeah. Right. That's obviously not good. How about Ace?"

"No. No one has ever called me Ace, Jeff." Sane people called her Shepard, although that was hardly her name. Respectfully sane people called her Commander Shepard...and at least the rank was hers, fair and square. "What's wrong with Candace?"

"Nothing." He cautiously slipped from the bed and moved slowly up behind her. "Just trying to make conversation. You and the Citadel have never gotten along, trying to get your mind off of it."

By going right into it. "You think you didn't get my mind off of it?" She asked gently, and he rested his hand on her bare shoulder. "Don't even, Jeff." One of these days, he'd figure out she wasn't joking about this. It wasn't a game. Until then, she'd just have to keep growling at him. Eventually, even he would get it...or so she hoped. Jeff could be a little dense sometimes, usually adorably so...except when it came down to this particular issue. And right now, she wasn't in the mood for it. Not with the very air of the Citadel pressing down on her. Too many damned memories here, too much she wanted to leave well in the past.

"Candace. I wish..."

"I know. And I can't. Back to bed with you. It's your job to warm it up." And it needed it, the room was chilled. Candace chose her hidey holes well on the Citadel, working to leave a wide berth between her current physical location and that past. That often meant dragging Jeff to some pretty out of the way hotels. He'd always been a good sport about it, but she could feel his questions flowing right under the surface. She kept him quiet with reminders of fraternization, like that even really mattered. It was just an excuse.

"Hmmm." He muttered, a response, but never quite an agreement. She sighed, sliding into bed beside him. At first, they had never slept together...they'd cautiously played, she'd let him do all of the driving, judging what he was physically comfortable with, and what was pushing his limits, and then they'd retreated to separate beds for his safety. Then they'd slept in the same bed, with the comforter rolled up to keep them apart. But she was a very quiet sleeper, and soon enough, they'd thrown all of those precautions to the wind. Candace's hope, her intention, was to make this part of her life as normal as possible.

"Go back to sleep, you big lunk." She chuckled, curling up on her side and staring at him. He always slept on his back, and she usually slept on her side turned away from him, but right now she let her hand rest against his belly, over his navel. It was so easy to overlook him, label him as the wise cracking, cocky handicapped guy, and sometimes she thought he did it on purpose, skittering away, obscuring himself in attitude and under the bill of his omnipresent cap. But he was a good looking man, well built, with amazing green eyes. It was like a gift, always in front of her, but that she'd finally opened her own eyes to see. And that was it, Jeff had always been there, right in front of her, and when shit got deep, beside or behind her. Even if it was only his voice in her headset, she'd always known he was there, waiting for her, watching over her. He was the one who rode in when shit got real to yank her out of it. He'd done the unthinkable to stand with her again, and nothing had hidden the naked relief in his eyes when he'd seen her after she'd come back from the abyss. How could she turn away from a man who stared at her like she was a miracle? Like she was his life, returned to him? She'd never felt that damned special before.

"I love you, Jeff." It wasn't the first time she'd said it...she wasn't usually the type to shy away from speaking her mind. Time tended to run out on the important things, and the last thing she wanted was for this to go unsaid.

"Hmmm." He sounded unconvinced, but he tangled his fingers gently in her hair.

"I know a great place not far from here for breakfast. I'm buying."

"Candace..."

Oh, he was going to get stubborn. She knew it had to be coming sometime, and apparently sometime was now, in the bashful quiet of a dark hotel room. "Jeff, there are some debts I have on the Citadel, debts I haven't cleared up yet." She sat up, wrapping her arms around her knees and resting her chin on them.

"You need money?" He sounded dubious, but hopeful.

"Not that kind of debt, more the somebody dies sort of debt. And I'm afraid of you getting caught in the crossfire when it does go down, okay?" But it seemed like the only place they really had shore leave on was the Citadel...the last place she felt she could relax at. It left her few choices, and she'd chosen the selfish one.

"Get Garrus and go take care of it, because this sucks." At least the doubt was gone from his voice, he believed her. And it was the truth...partially. It was as much as she was comfortable sharing with him at the moment. He didn't need to know the whole truth.

"Sure." Maybe one of these days she would do exactly that, gather up a posse of crew and go take care of it, once and for all. Just not now. "Sleep, Jeff."

"I love it when you give me orders." He chuckled, running his fingertips down her spine. "But come back here and you go to sleep as well."

Candace woke to calm silence, interspersed by the loud growls of her stomach. It was odd to be away from the ship, to not be lulled by her sounds, to be away from those she trusted more than any people in all of existence. Once, she'd trusted no one...but now, she trusted, she belonged, she loved and was loved in return. "Morning." She breathed, and he shifted in reply. "You broken?"

"No." He replied, cautiously slipping from the sheets and paddling barefooted to the bathroom. Candace admired the view as long as it was visible, and made a sad, audible noise when he closed the door behind him. It was a joy to hear him laugh in answer, but she waited for him to clear the tiny bathroom before she stood up...it was one of the things that they'd had to work out... there was too much of a chance of an accident if she followed her heart to join him in the shower. A slip...a fall...no. She used the time to catch up on morning reports, called in, lounging in the sheets. The more she got done now, the less she'd have to worry about later...

She heard the door open, felt his eyes on her. "They should use that sight for the next Systems Alliance recruiting poster. Shepard doing her job...in her birthday suit...lit up by her omnitool." He stated, rubbing a towel over his hair.

"Yeah, well...the only person who's going to see that sight has already been recruited." She shook her head at the very idea. "All for you, Jeff. All for you." She slipped out of the bed, closing down the omnitool and sliding past him when he only gave her just barely enough room to squeeze by him with. Which was exactly what he was angling for, she knew. She gave an extra wiggle right before she made it by him, grinning evilly when he hissed through his teeth... a good hiss, not a bad hiss. She'd learned the difference. A quick shower, get dressed, breakfast and get Jeff safely back to the _Normandy_...in plenty of time to get the day's work done and make it all look good. She'd planned carefully, to go to ground in a hotel just steps from her favorite breakfast place. Treat Jeff to the best waffles with raspberry custard cream in the entire galaxy... the very idea made her stomach growl impatiently. It had been a long time and the way things were going, this might be her last chance to have them again.

He was dressed when she got out of the shower, settling his cap low over his eyes. "Let's go feed you, or I'll never hear the end of it. Has anybody ever told you that you eat like a biotic?"

"Yup." They had. And she did. And she wasn't. "I know, I know. If I wasn't on the N7 end of the world exercise program I'd be chubby." It was an amazing thought, Candace Shepard, _chubby_.

"Hah. I'd pay to see that." He said, watching her get dressed and scrape her hair back into a pitiful little tail. "You could use a couple of kilos, you're living on coffee and purpose."

True enough, but that would just have to wait. Like everything else was going to have to wait. "Well, if anything in existence is going to give me a couple of kilos, it's what I have planned for breakfast. Come on."

It was a short trip, even with Jeff walking, a real blast from the past. It hadn't changed one little bit. Still exactly as dingy as it had been the last time she was here, the same worn tables...the same stained menus...no electronic screens here. It felt like home, and Candace had precious little of that in her life. It was ironic, the Citadel should be home, she'd been born here, raised here... and she spent all of her efforts trying to avoid here.

"Wow. You weren't kidding." Jeff said, studying the menu. Candace reached for the other one, but froze... Something felt off. Wrong suddenly. She was being watched. Measured. Targeted.

"Down!" She growled, overbalancing her chair backwards, using that momentum to hit the floor rolling. She was the target, not Jeff. If she moved fast enough, she'd force them to choose between her and Jeff. And she better be the one they shot at. The plate window to the street shattered, peppering the small restaurant with high impact glass. Stuck...pinned down. She had to get outside, give Jeff cover, get in a better position to hold for support. Support. Who was she fooling? She had to go to ground. No, she had to get Jeff out of this. But first, she had to get a good look around, get her bearings, find what she needed to find.

"Stay." She shouted at him, high crawling towards the door. "And do not trust the staff." They hadn't been here long, but long enough for someone to recognize her, sell her out. Damn it, she was a bitter, bitter fool to bring him here. "Welcome fucking home, Candy." She muttered, making the dubious cover of the door frame and getting her first good look around. One high. Piss poor sniper. But no one simply brought a sniper, there had to be people on the ground...in the building across the way, ground floor of the same building the sniper had a position in. Only one grouping? Possibly...

"Hey, Candy!" She cringed, squeezing as deeply into the dubious cover as she could manage, trying to place the voice. It had been awhile. A good long while. "Need to talk to you about something. We'll leave your gimp boyfriend alone if you just come out...hands up."

And that was not about to happen. The only people willing to shoot up a restaurant to get to her were not about to _talk_ about her past misdeeds. Nor were they going to simply let Jeff go... But these days, she had better tools than she'd had when she was a young'un... It had been long enough to where she didn't remember where the nearest hole was, but she had an omnitool to scan her immediate surroundings to find it. _Please be close. Please._ Even if she called out the cavalry, it'd be minutes before they made it here. Minutes she didn't have.

"Cover me, Jeff!"

"Gotcha!" He laid down fire and she rolled through the bottom of the door, glass long gone, and rolled to her left, getting her first good look down the access alleyway between the restaurant and the hotel. It was tight, it was good cover and it ended in...

"Fuck me." She hissed. It couldn't be a regular access panel, it had to be a tamper resistant one. Well, there went her fingertips... She burst down the alley, ramming shoulder first into the panel. It jarred slightly, back and up, unseating the clamps slightly. It was easier than it had been, but now Candace was bigger, stronger, heavier than she had been the last time she'd tried this. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but she closed her mind to the pain of getting a good grip on the clamp locking nut, and gave it a savage twist. It fell to the floor with a ringing chime and she grinned. Years had gone by, and she could still manage that in just seconds. A quick glance inside proved that luck smiled on her, the duct was horizontal as far as she could see.

Now, to get Jeff out and behind her, into the alley...

"Garrus, some unfriendlies have Shepard and me pinned down. At least three shooters, one on the third floor across, sniping. I count two on the ground floor, possibly more. Need assistance." He sounded good, tense but focused. He had to consider himself in a good enough position to talk and shoot, but Candace wasn't as convinced. If this escalated, he was in the worst possible position for a grenade lob, and he wasn't going to be moving fast enough to get the hell out of there.

"Shepard? You on the channel?" Garrus, his voice steady but she could hear the rapid thud of his strides as he ran across metal flooring.

"Yeah. I'm gonna try to pull Joker out of where he is."

"Can't you leave him where he is? Pull fire off of him until we get there?"

It was a truly tempting thought, to just turtle down and wait for the big guns to arrive and save the day. And if she didn't have Jeff pinned down in a grenade target zone, she'd probably consider it. "No can do. One grenade and we'll be looking for a new pilot."

"Thanks for talking about me like I can't hear you two." She felt more than heard the nervousness under Jeff's voice, and she steeled her resolve. He wasn't going to be the one to pay her debts, those were hers.

"Uh huh. Joker, there's an alley between the restaurant, and the hotel. I'm gonna cover you while you get into it. At the back is an open duct access hatch. I need you in it." She absently wiped her bloodied fingers down the front of her shirt, she needed a good grip when she finally moved. "Go!" If she gave him a chance, he'd argue. So she had no intention of giving him that chance.

She boiled back out of the alleyway, peppering her progress with gunfire, taking cover back in the doorway to stand between Joker and the street. The less time he was in the open, the better. She glanced up and down the street, unsurprised by its sudden vacancy. No one was stupid enough to stay out, no one was stupid enough to become involved. And no C-Sec in sight...

She could feel Jeff come up right behind her, just mere feet from the turn into the protected alleyway...and a mile away from safety. Those seconds between here and there were going to be long ones indeed. "Go, Jeff." She breathed, feeling him hesitate close enough to touch her. "I got this. Time to deal with that debt."

"Twelve minutes out, Shepard. Looks like we're going to be your first response. There's not a C-Sec squad _anywhere_ near you." Garrus didn't bother to bleed the doubt and frustration from his voice, that stank. Someone had been paid off to pull that one off.

"Understood." It just was what it was. She stepped out, pushing the cover as far as it would go, before nodding sharply, knowing that Jeff's attention was focused on the back of her head. She broke for the dubious cover of a planter island in the median of the small street, focusing her fire on the third story window. If anybody was going to get a killing shot, it was that guy...she had to keep him out of the window, force him to move for another line of fire.

She stayed there for what felt like an eternity, only seconds in real time, before she fell back for the alley. Jeff was under cover, approaching the access, and she took a relieved breath. "What now?" He demanded, and she glanced at the duct again. It would be a nightmare trying to get Jeff in that, and he'd have to go first until they reached a juncture... He bitched and moaned when he got stressed out, she'd never hear the end of it.

"Now, now, Candy. You know how this is going to go down. Why fight it?" Ah, the mocking voice, she'd finally placed it. Unfortunately. When had he gotten out of jail? Were they _all_ out? No wonder no one was around...

"Jeff. I'm going to need you to get in that duct." They'd never follow her into the ducts. They knew better, even after all of this time. They'd break apart to monitor the access points, hoping to catch her coming out, but she had backup coming. Garrus, Vega, Bailey, big guns. Good guns. And when she was out of here, she was going to finally end this debt, once and for all. It wasn't that they'd threatened her, that was pretty par for the course...it was that they'd threatened Jeff on one of the rare times she'd managed to get him off of the _Normandy_.

"Ugh..." Good. He was worried enough to where he was going to follow her orders without a single wisecrack. It was a rare occurrence, but it did happen. "How far?"

She grinned toothily, keeping a raptor stare on the high grounds above her. "Until you reach a wider space. Should be about..." It had been way, way too long. She should go first, but she was the only one who could lock the hatch down. And if she didn't lock it down, whoever was in the back was going to get a bullet enema. "Thirty meters." It was a long haul crawl for Jeff, and she hated its necessity. But it had to be done. "You should hear water. If you don't, please let me know." If he didn't, then she'd misjudged what she'd just sent him into.

"Water? Great." He grumbled, but she could hear him clamber into the duct and start moving. A moment later, she followed, yanking the hatch closed and using her omnitool to fry the pressure override emergency lock on it. It'd take ages to get it open now...ages and know-how she was pretty certain that Ballsy didn't have. Candace had always known her way around the ducts, and then the Systems Alliance had given her in depth infiltration training and a handy dandy omnitool to get her into, and out of, everywhere she wanted to be.

The duct was smaller than she remembered, eerily shadowed by the glow thrown off by the two omnitools. Somehow it was much creepier than she remembered, and she'd been accustomed to navigating these in near blackness.

"I hear water." Jeff muttered, tilting his head to speak through his armpit. "That's good, right?"

"Yeah." She hoped she sounded more optimistic and assured than she actually felt. It had been almost twenty years since she'd been on her hands and knees in a Citadel duct.

"I _smell_ water." There was a wealth of things that Jeff didn't say, but did, in that statement and Candace snorted aloud. Yes, the water flowing here should have a distinctive smell, and it did... she could smell it, fake and flowery. "Tell me that's not piss water. And better yet, tell me it doesn't have floaters."

"It's not sewer." At least, it shouldn't be. "It's gray water." She had to get him to a balcony. Soon, and from there, let him rest and simply wait for backup. Ballsy wouldn't follow her into these depths, it would be safe to stop pretty close to the access hatch...as long as they weren't a straight line shot from the opening.

"Here's your wider spot." Again, all business. He could do it, and when he did, he was amazingly good at it. "Shit. Lost my hat...in the water. Fuck."

"It's okay."

"The hell it is, Candace. My hat!"

"And the world shall see your hat hair of doom." She sniped back. "It won't go any farther than the strain catch. I'll get it in a second." Now that they were safe, secure, she could breathe again. Try to calm her heartbeat and think beyond the hind brain reaction to get both of them underground, in a place she knew well and felt she had control in. "It's an adventure, Jeff. The time you and Commander Shepard went down the Citadel ducts. Nobody else on the _Normandy_ can claim that. You'll get real mileage out of it. Maybe even a free drink or two."

"Kids die in these."

And that was a fact that Candace was all too aware of. One wrong turn, one wrong choice, and that was that. And it was so, so very easy to get disoriented in the shadows... "I'm not going to take you into the deep ducts." He wouldn't survive them...hell, these days, _she_ wouldn't. "Just to the first balcony." She knew he had no idea what she was talking about, but hopefully it sounded comforting and low key.

"I dunno what it is about shore leave on the Citadel." He growled in disgust. "Sex and breakfast should not end with 'Oh, no, Jeff, that's not sewage water. I swear it's only wash water'."

"I'd be happier if I'd had both the sex _and_ the breakfast." He was wisecracking again, a good sign. He felt better. She'd do her best to help it along... "You should be in a wider spot?" He had to be, if he'd lost his cap in water.

"Yeah. Give me a second and I'll let you pass." She heard him squirm, hissing...and she closed her mind to it. He shouldn't be here. Hell, she shouldn't be here, but there was no changing this...he was, she was. And people were going to pay for it.

"Okay. You can wiggle by me now." He sighed, and she did, making certain she knew where he was before she delicately moved over and around him. Yes, the water, exactly as it should be, just a couple of centimeters deep, flowing over her fingers. It smelled of fake flowers, its flow rate was fairly swift, and that was the only vibration she sensed when she rested her forehead against the duct side. No machinery, only fountain and sink water, still all good. She crawled slowly forward, measuring with her fingertips, now should come the grooves...the braille incised in the metalwork to let her know what was coming. _Please, please, please._ She'd like to get deeper before she stopped, in case they managed to get the hatch off. It would be nothing to shoot up this duct, no risk, and now, Jeff was in the back.

There, the grooves she was praying for under her fingertips. "We're almost there, Jeff." Then he could rest and they could hunker down and wait for backup. "Watch for the drop." With only the omnitools for illumination, everything was painted in deep shadows and that drop could come quickly. It was only about a meter change, but it was still nothing she wanted to take a face first header off of.

"Drop? Candace...how much of a drop are we talking?" His voice was muffled and wary, he didn't want to admit she'd already pushed him about as far as he could take. She felt the edge under her fingers, and leaned over to light the bottom. Yup, about a meter. "Not too far, Jeff." She stated firmly, lifting the omnitool. There was the balcony. "A meter drop...and about a three meter walk and we'll turtle. Well, you'll turtle and I'll go find your hat." She slid from the duct and stood, taking a good hard look around. He crawled up behind her, at her eye level, and gave her a lopsided grin.

"Chances that they'll come in here?" He asked, accepting her shoulder as support and maneuvering out of the duct to stand next to her. She snorted at the idea, taking a gentle hold of him and moving him over to the balcony, their steps echoing on metal plate flooring. It was safe, warm, obscured...a perch over kilometers of ducts, the inner heart of the Citadel. It was _home_.

"Next to nil. Nobody's going to follow me into the ducts, well, none of that bunch is. They're gonna watch the accesses and try to get me when I come out." Except she wasn't coming out of here without support. "Garrus."

"Still on the way."

Yeah, no surprise there. "No hurry. We're under cover. Don't kill anybody I want to keep alive by rushing in to save us. Tell Bailey I've gone to ground, he'll know what to do."

"Acknowledged." A wealth of questions formed under that terse word, but Garrus wasn't going to ask them, yet. Jeff...was another thing altogether. She could feel the weight of his stare as she fished his hat out of the strain, beating the worst of the water off of it by briskly batting it across her thighs.

"What?" She demanded, offering it back to him. "No one's shooting at us now."

"Candace. What's going on? I mean all of it, this time." Of course. She sighed, climbing to sit beside him on the balcony, patting her lap. He accepted the invitation, gingerly stretching out and resting his head in her lap, his eyes locked on the under slope of her chin.

"All of it?" It had been easier to hold it back before this, but now she was drenched in water that smelled of hand soap and that stuff they put in the fountains, almost alone, in the dark again.

"All of it." He affirmed, taking hold of her hand and resting it on his chest, covering it with his. He was so warm, real, there. He'd never failed her, in spite of everything. She could feel his heart beat, a little too hard, a little too fast. She'd given him enough adventure for awhile.

"There is no Candace Shepard." There. There it was. The horrible truth.

"I don't understand, Candace. I mean...what the fuck?"

"There is no Candace Shepard, Jeff. It's all made up. No Candace. No Shepard. My name is Candy... a pro's name. I was born here and I grew up in these ducts, my mother was a pro...and I...was supposed to have been one as well. And this was all over something I did before I was Shepard. It has nothing to do with you, the Alliance, anything. I'm sorry." She was not, not, repeat _not_ , going to say anything whiny and pathetic. She might not have been born a Shepard, but she'd certainly done more for her assumed name than the actor she'd borrowed it off of. His fame had been fleeting and empty, her service was not. And Candace was a much more suitable name for someone busily saving the galaxy than Candy had ever been.

She didn't look down at him, she didn't need to. Jeff might be surprised, shocked, but he wasn't the type who'd back out because of something like this. He was one of the most doggedly, stubbornly loyal souls it had ever been her joy to meet. And he'd keep it to himself...because nothing important ever fell from his lips. He used wisecracks and snark as his armor, but the things that were dear to him were hidden, covered...sacred.

"You were a duct rat before you joined the Alliance."

"Yup. Only a fool would follow me in here."

"This is what you've been keeping from me?" Outrage dripped from his syllables, and she laughed. "I thought it was something important. Possibly deal breaking. But no..." He shifted, getting comfortable and dropping the bill of his hat down low over his eyes. "Bad childhood. Seriously, Candace, you throw me for a loop every damn time."

"I've done things I'm really not proud of, Jeff."

He growled, then sighed and wove his fingers through hers. "You did shit you had to, right? That's what you're dancing around here? Stole? Killed? Turned some tricks?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm dancing around here." It sounded so minimal when he put it like that, which was exactly what he was aiming for. "I thought..."

"Heh." He breathed. "I stuck by you through it all, Candace. Dead. Maybe not dead. Possibly alive. Alive but working for Cerberus. Saren. Collectors. Reapers..."

"I know. I should never doubt you." Let Alenko ponder all of the finer moral points, she needed a man who'd take her, warts and all. Jeff had never wavered. He deserved better, he deserved...more. "I should have never gotten you into this, either. I didn't realize they were out of jail."

"Well, they are. Why were they in jail in the first place? What'd you do?" His voice was soothing out...he was tired, heavier in her lap.

"Put 'em there." She chuckled, knowing he'd already figured that one out. "Okay, fine. I'll tell you a bedtime story, about a little girl called Candy and a guy named Ballsy. Now, Ballsy wanted to be a pretty big name in a lot of bad things, prostitution, stealing, money laundering, drugs, and the occasional knocking off of people who might get in the way, you know?"

"I know." He murmured softly, and she leaned over to press a kiss on his nose.

"So, Ballsy wanted Candy to work for him, pimp type of shit, but she wasn't having much of that. That was need only, not an everyday thing. But getting him to back off just wasn't working, until Candy found out that Ballsy was planning something big. One of those knocking off people that got in the way jobs. So...maybe...just maybe, Candy dug her way around the ducts until she found the spotter nest setup, proof, and tried to drop a teensy tiny note into some guy in a uniform's pocket giving him a heads up."

"Tried?"

"Yeah. He was better at looking for pickpockets than I was at reverse pickpocketing. Got a hold of me and didn't let go. Still hasn't. Anderson." She'd been taken off of the Citadel so fast that it had made her head spin, her ears full of promises that her mind had not even begun to believe. But they'd been true.

"Ah. I can see it. Candace, it's going to take a lot more than this to faze me, you know that, right?"

"This from the guy I just dragged through the duct work." She loved him, she really did. And this just seemed to underline it in a broad, bold stroke. "I..."

"We're on site, Shepard." Garrus stated firmly, breaking the spell. "You're certain you're under cover?"

"Yup. We are good."

"Bailey says he's coming in to get you. You know what he means?"

"Yeah." She did. Bailey knew the exterior ducts almost as well as if he'd been born a duct rat himself. It had made him a real pain in the ass on more than one occasion, but not today. He'd be able to find them easily enough, in fact...

She raised her head to peer into the gloom above her, catching the first hints of footfalls against the grate floors of the balcony a couple of levels up. "Bailey?"

"Yeah. Don't shoot me in the ass, Shepard." Grumpy as always, she had to grin in spite of herself. "You two okay?"

"I think so." Just because Jeff wasn't complaining didn't really mean a damn thing. He got tight lipped when he was in pain...and he had a lot of experience with that. She didn't sense that he was bad off, but he'd fooled her before. But he was definitely willing to stay where he was, his head pillowed in her lap. He was awake, she could see the changing glint of his eye motion under the bill of his hat, but he was relaxed. Calm.

"So, Ballsy got you pinned down. Good. And with you in the ducts, means I know exactly where his guys are. No...I did not let this happen, but now I can finish it. They've shot at you. The great Commander Shepard and Lieutenant Moreau. Those idiots are dead meat." He chuckled, coming into the light of the omnitools. "Vakarian is hunting them down as we speak. I'll get the rest later."

"Don't I get a go at them?" It was an empty question, she didn't have the time to and Bailey knew it. Her job was to save the galaxy, not chase down petty criminals on the Citadel. And that was an amazing realization. This didn't require her time or her attention, it was someone else's problem. It was Bailey's problem, and he had enough rope to wrangle with now. She simply could wrap Jeff up, return to the Normandy, and leave it on someone else's desk. It wasn't vital enough, important enough, for her attention.

"No." Bailey replied mildly. "I don't do your job, you don't do mine...especially when you doing mine takes away my job satisfaction. You're Commander Shepard. Go do Commander Shepard shit and let me clean my own house."

Right. Go do _Commander Shepard_ shit. Take Jeff out of this place, meet up with Garrus and go back to... where she belonged, doing what she did. Bailey had never hesitated, paused or blinked, he'd always accepted her as something he knew she wasn't. No... she met his eyes, he was willing to let her grow into something she could be. "Thanks, Bailey. For everything."

He snorted, his eyes on the scene in front of him. "Been an honor, Candace. A real honor. You make me proud, girl. Now take him out of here and go do the important shit. I'll handle clean up. Your access hatch is open and your people are waiting for you on the other side." He reached out a hand, delicately helping her to get Jeff back on his feet.

There was a broad swath of light in the duct and she squinted, climbing into it and crawling down it. She emerged into the open, secure under Vega's belligerent stare and weapon held at the ready as he guarded the access point.

"Shepard." He spat, helping her out. "We going after these guys?"

"No. We're gonna let Bailey do that. We've got Reapers to stop." She reached down to take Jeff's hands when he appeared, kneeling to meet him eye to eye. "This isn't our problem. Not my business." No. It was not her business anymore. She was truly Commander Shepard now.


End file.
